


i've seen the end, i've lost the war

by twoschoolfourcool



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Violence, Dubious Consent, M/M, POV Second Person, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:50:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoschoolfourcool/pseuds/twoschoolfourcool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when you woke up, you were on the couch, two aspirin and a glass of water next to you on the table. your lip was split, and you tasted blood but you were alone, only the faint taste of grantaire’s whiskey in your mouth under the metallic taste of your own blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've seen the end, i've lost the war

**Author's Note:**

> i am really nervous about posting this so bare with me.
> 
> this story deals with a very sensitive subject. if you do not feel comfortable with such material, please do not read. extending warnings, notes, and summary at the end.
> 
> title taken from the amazing song wrapped in piano strings by radical face 
> 
> apologies to my eighth grade english teacher, who told me second person pov didn't exist

he’s drunk the first time it happens. it shouldn't make you feel better but it does, a shade of hope clawing its way out of your heart and through your veins to your brain. he didn't mean it. he couldn't have, not the way he cried and begged you to forgive him in the morning.

you borrow some makeup from cosette between classes. you tell her you got the black eye at one of your demonstrations for the students union and you might have pulled off the lie to anyone else, but not her. she gives you a look like she knows, but she can’t because no one can. because it’s never going to happen again. you apply the concealer in the bathroom mirror and try not to cry when you remember the fury in his eyes, the whisky on his breath, his hands on your wrists. it’s hard, so hard, remembering those eyes, always so filled with love and laughter, nearly black with rage towards you.

in your philosophy class, you can feel cosette’s eyes drilling a hole into the back of your head. you sit next to courfeyrac and try to focus on your notes, but you just want to turn around and snap at her. she’s the one making a big deal out of nothing. it’s not a big deal.

it’s

not

a 

big

deal

**

you go to the musain after your last class of the day with courfeyrac and combeferre. they both seem to buy your black eye story and you pray to every god you can think of. you sit at your table in the corner and go over notes for the next student union meeting and this is good, because it’s safe, and no one is around to ask questions and you think back to the day before yesterday, when everything was normal between the two of you and he touched your face and kissed the corner of your mouth. 

“drinks tonight, yeah?” combeferre asks, and you feel yourself nod without even looking up from your notebook. then, “oh. not tonight for me. i have..i mean someone has to proof read pontmercy’s notes before thursday right?”

courfeyrac smirks. “we get it. lads night in. you don’t have to be shy about it. gods know you’ve never been about it before.” 

you can’t help it when you feel the corner of your mouth twitch up. in the beginning, when you and grantaire finally got your shit together, you’d be all over each other all the time. touching from head to toe whenever you saw each other. and you love it. holding his hand, kissing him, his arms around your waist. you wouldn't trade it for the world. except when you would.

you shake your head and the boys snicker and go back to their notes. it’s never quiet at the musain, but tonight the energy seem sluggish, like it’s dragging it’s feet, waiting for something to happen. it makes your palms sweat, but you push it to the back of your mind and focus on the demands of one of the animal rights groups on campus. you can hear musichetta singing behind the counter and you catch a flash of jehan’s flowered pants and then you feel better and the silence isn’t so overwhelming. 

then the bell on the door chimes and grantaire walks in with eponine and gavroche. 

you don’t think anyone else notices the way your leg shoots up and bangs on the bottom of the table. combeferre whistles and waves them over and you feel something-fear, dread, anticipation- crawl up your spine. 

“alright lads?” grantaire says, leaning down to kiss you hard on the mouth. you smile at him because it’s what he would expect and everything is normal.

combeferre smiles his toothy grin at grantaire. “oh i bet you are. tell me, what sort of romance do you have planned for tonight loverboy?”

grantaire raises his eyebrows and looks at you. you shrug and he laughs and cups your face in his hands. “whatever my apollo wants,” he murmurs against your lips, leaning forward to kiss you long and deep and you just want to curl up inside this moment for the rest of your life.

gavroche gags and walks over to the counter to bother musichetta. you laugh and eponine leans down to ruffle your hair and you place a quick kiss on his cheek. “he’ll get used to it,” she says. “a few more years and he’ll have the girls all over him.”

courfeyrac tilts his glass of water in her direction. “don’t worry, ep, we’ll teach him the ropes.” 

“and how is that supposed to make me not worry?”

you can feel in when grantaire laughs, his chest rumbling happily against your back. you’re suddenly struck with an overwhelming feeling for warmth and happiness and even though you’re jaw still aches and underneath your eye is tender to your touch, you wouldn't trade what you have now for anything.

**  
you don’t remember the second time it happened. one minute you were standing in your kitchen together and the next minute he was looking at you with that rage in his eyes as you scrambled to pick up the remains of the broken wine glass that laid in shatters between you. when you woke up, you were on the couch, two aspirin and a glass of water next to you on the table. your lip was split, and you tasted blood but you were alone, only the faint taste of grantaire’s whiskey in your mouth under the metallic taste of your own blood. 

he wasn't drunk, that time. just angry. 

**  
the third time you make cosette take you to the hospital. it should be the last straw but it isn’t.

in the emergency room, you sit in the stark silence, pressing an ice pack to your ribs as cosette reads an outdated magazine next to you. you shift your body and hiss as a sharp pain nestles its way into your bones. 

“you said you fell down the stairs?” cosette asks, not looking up from her magazine.

you nod tightly and shift the ice pack to your face. you can’t tell which hurts more. “i wasn't paying attention. too much to think about. i really need to be more careful.”

she hums and flips the page. “and why, pray tell, did you have to drag me here instead of taking grantaire? i’m sure he'd want to know what happened, and that you’re alright.”

just hearing his name makes you want to curl up and die. you can still feel the way his foot sliced through the air to land a hard kick to your rib cage, and you can still see his white knuckle grip on your hair as he cocked back his fist and punched you square in the face. this time was your fault, though. he had been going on and on about taking you out for a nice dinner this week and you had left your ancient religions paper until the last minute. so when he came home, wearing a button down shirt and black slacks, you were curled up on the couch, surrounded by next books, dressed in an old pair of his sweats.

he hit your face on purpose, you’re sure of it. 

“work,” you say easily. “he’s at work.”

“tending bar?” she asks. “you took the fall to end all falls down the stairs and R can’t tear himself away from the bar for one hour to make sure you’re okay?”

you shrug. “we need the money. we-we’re saving up to buy our own place, close to the musain.”

the words taste like acid in your mouth and cosette’s supportive smile makes you grit your teeth and dig your fingernails into your thigh. this should be good. you’ve been together for almost two years and always dreamed of living together. but the apartment you share with courfeyrac has became your refuge, your small attic bedroom littered with maps and transcripts of famous speeches and the way courfeyrac makes his coffee just the way he likes it, the way grantaire could never master. but that’s what happy couples do; they move in together and they deal with the fact that their coffee isn’t perfect. 

“i’m happy for you,” cosette say, taking his hand. “but this totally means we have to go apartment hunting together. i need to move out of mine and eponine said she’s split rent with me.”

you smile, a ghost of a grin and lean your head back on the hard plastic chair. yes, you think, yes. you and grantaire will move in together and he’ll keep tending bar and you’ll keep waiting tables and sometimes you won’t make rent you’ll be happy and you’ll fight and kiss and have sex and he won’t put his hands on you like this again.

and you’ll be together and really that’s all you care about. 

**  
the fourth time really doesn't count.

he slaps you across the face for burning dinner. your grilled cheese sandwiches lay on the floor, inedible and black around the edges. you cradle your face in you hand and almost recoil because it’s hot, too hot all of a sudden. but then grantaire takes your hands and pulls you close and presses his lips to your forehead. 

“i’m sorry, cher,” he murmurs. “but you get me so worked up all the time. i love you, you know. i do it because i love you so much, you know that.”

and you can feel you head go up and down, but it feels like you’re watching from far away, like an out of body experience. who is this person, standing here, taking slaps on the face and kicks to the ribs, and then accepting kisses on the face and hands on the waist? who is this person, walking up and down the streets of paris, smiling and laughing with the same man who fisted his hair in cold hands and pressed his neck into the ground with his foot? who lets himself be treated this way and does nothing. he’s a leader, people depend on him. he’s tutoring gavroche in philosophy and combeferre and courfeyrac are like brothers to him, and he'd be lost without them. he relishes the chance to hear jehan’s poetry and hear musichetta sing behind the counter at the musain. what would they say if they saw him now.

“i know,” you hear yourself say. “i love you too.”

**  
it’s eponine, always eponine, who calls him out on it.

“the first step is admitting it,” she says, keeping her voice low. they’re sitting in his attic bedroom, boxes all around them, filled with papers and nic naks and your clothes. you fell in love with an apartment close to university and the musain, a one bedroom with big windows and an airy kitchen. you had smiled at grantaire and he rolled his eyes and nodded at you and then you had sex in front of the window, facing the street. 

“i don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, even though you’re pretty sure you know exactly what’s made his mouth set into a thin line. 

she doesn’t say anything, just takes you hands and turns them so your wrists are facing the ceiling. they’re purple with bruises. you open your mouth to say you think you must have gotten them that night in the apartment, when you were having sex, but then you decide that would probably just make everything worse. 

“it’s him, isn't it?” she asks. “grantaire? he do that to your face too?”

unconsciously, you move your hand up to touch the fading bruise on your jaw. “it’s nothing,” you say, and your voice is flat it scares you. “we’re just having some money problems lately. the apartment practically wiped out out savings. “

eponine shakes her head and she looks angry and hurt and like she’s about to cry all at once. “i know abuse when i see it, enjolras. and this is it, plain as day. he hits you. how can you not see that?”

you cringe when she says ‘abuse’. it’s the word you've been trying to avoid since the first time he hit you, blind drunk and maybe a little high. you’re not like that, not a battered women with a husband that beats her everyday. you and grantaire talk and laugh and have sex and eat breakfast together and go on dates and walks in the park and he paints pictures of you and you study philosophy and run the student union. you’re happy, most of the time. and when you’re not, it’s your fault. 

“i love him,” you say. “he loves me. we’re happy.”

“this isn't love. maybe you don't remember, because you’re too wrapped up in your fantasy world, but i lived this. me and gavroche both, with our parents. maybe they didn't hit us all the time, but it was still abuse. and maybe grantaire loved you deep down, but this is still abuse.”

that makes you feel cold because grantaire is nothing like eponine’s parents, who doted on her as a child but grew disinterested as she matured and by the time gavroche was born, they were done being parents. you've known grantaire since your first day of university and you know in your bones that he will never grow tired of you. but you know, in your bones, that something needs to be done right now. 

“i’ll talk to him,” you say. “tonight. i’ll tell him that if he...if he doesn’t stop, i’ll end it. but, eponine, i have to try to save this. i can’t give up on us.”  
eponine nods at you and you can tell by her eyes that this solution doesn’t entirely please her, but she’ll let it go. 

if you tell grantaire how you feel, he’ll listen. he wants what's best for you and you know he’ll do anything to make you happy, as fucked up as it seems. 

and you’re happy with him, as fucked up as it seems. 

**  
in your new apartment, with the windows and airy kitchen, you try to talk to him but he kisses you instead and you keep trying to get a word out and he keeps kissing you. 

he walks you back into your bedroom and presses you down on the bed, his lips making contact with the spot on your neck that makes you shiver. he takes off your sweater, your shirt, your pants, you boxers. he pushes his jeans down his hips and then he’s back on you, kisses and touching your sides, moving his hands up and down and cupping your thighs. 

you close your eyes and kiss him back and all the while you rehearse what you’ll say to him in your head when this is over. i love you but your have to stop. i’ll be better, i promise just please, please stop. i can’t be with you when you hurt me like this. 

you close your eyes and breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> this stories deals with domestic violence and a fairly unhealthy relationship (read: grantaire hits enjolras and enjolras doesn't see it as a big deal). the characterization may not be 100%, so heed that. 
> 
> also: i love grantaire and e/r is one of my favorite pairing. i am not bashing grantaire in this fic. someone needed to be the bad guy and he lost the draw. if you have any questions/comments/concerns/complaints, please don't hesitate to leave it in the comments, direct message me, or message me on tumblr at ennjolras.tumblr.com
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
